Rehan & Gauher
by sleapyGazelle
Summary: A retelling of Hansel & Gretel in the Lunar Chronicles universe.


This story was submitted to the Lunar Chronicles fanfiction contest. Reviews are much appreciated.

* * *

Kazim and his two children, Rehan and Gauher, had stowed away to Earth from their home on Luna, because Kazim couldn't bear the thought of his daughter being taken from him. Gauher had been born without the power of manipulating others—glamour—that lunars possessed, and so was labeled a shell, a dirty thing that had to be taken away. Even now, 240,000 miles away from Luna, Kazim still shuddered at the thought of thousands of shells being killed, enslaved, or worse.

After coming to Earth, he had eventually been able to find a new home—a quiet farm in Rieux, France—and a new wife, Corinne. Although he was grateful to her for accepting him despite most Earthens' prejudices against lunars, he was frustrated by her lack of sympathy for Gauher and Rehan. The fights were getting worse each day.

"Corinne, how many times do I have to tell you? Rehan is only ten. It will take time for him to learn to control his glamor."

"I'm running out of patience!" Corinne yelled. "He scares me! All of a sudden he changes his appearance completely. Or he makes me do things against my will!"

Kazim put his arms around her , pulling her close. "Dear, I'm sure you and the kids just need to give each other a chance. You think they're out to get you, but they feel the same way about you."

Corinne started to pull away, so Kazim took her hand instead. "I'll talk to them, okay? And would you do me a favor, and try to be patient with them? You know how much all three of you mean to me."

She nodded, but Kazim didn't feel very hopeful.

***** *****  
Rehan lurked shyly in the doorway, wanting to hug his father goodbye. But, Kazim was discussing his plans for the business trip with Corinne, and Rehan didn't want to get scolded for interrupting, or even for crossing her line of sight. He wished Gauher were there to give him confidence; Corinne had sent her to the neighboring Benoits' farm to fetch some supplies. She was only a year older, but ever since they came to Earth, she was always looking out for him, trying to help him control his glamour with words of encouragement. When they had lived on Luna, it used to be Rehan comforting his big sister when she cried about not having a glamour. In those days, they had both wished Gauher was normal. Now, all of a sudden, Rehan had become the freak. Their dad had even stopped playing face-change games with them. In fact, he had stopped using his glamour altogether. Rehan wished he had that kind of control; he even wished he had been a shell like Gauher. Then, maybe his stepmother wouldn't have despised him so much.

"Alrighty, little bear," Kazim growled at Rehan, fishing for giggles. Corinne had left, and Kazim walked up to his son to give him a bear hug. "Give your sister a hug from me. And both of you be nice to your mother, okay?"

Rehan nodded, internally dreading the next three days.

Some time after Kazim left, Corinne rushed into Rehan's room, out of breath. "Oh, stars! Something has happened to Kazim! I can't reach his portscreen. He's in trouble, I'm sure of it."

Her words filled him with pure fear. Was he going to lose his father? What was happening?

"Hurry! I've called for a hover; it's probably waiting outside by now. Go through the woods—it's the route your father took. Go see if he has run into bandits or if he's hurt, and needs help. Meanwhile, I'll try to locate him from here. Quick!"

Rehan scrambled out to the waiting hover. Just as he was about to get in, he noticed Gauher walking up the path. He hurried up to her and breathlessly explained the situation. Once she understood the gist of it, she dropped her bags of supplies and ran with him.

Corinne had already preset the destination when she called the hover. It sped along through gradually thickening trees, and the children tried to keep an eye out for Kazim through the windows. They traveled further and deeper into the woods, until the hover pulled to a sudden stop.

"We have reached the destination coordinates," the droid stated. "The fare has been prepaid. Please exit the hover."

"No, we need to find our dad," Gauher protested. Rehan's bemused expression mirrored her own. But the hover did not compute their explanations, and they were forced to step out.

Lost without their portscreens to help them find their way, the children wandered in a growing state of despair, trying to retrace the hover's path. A couple of hours later, Rehan glimpsed a shock of bright red hair behind a tree.

"Scarlet!" He yelled in relief. Scarlet Benoit, their neighbor, stepped into full view, visibly concerned by their presence. They explained that they were lost.

"Well, lucky you ran into me!" She smiled genuinely. "I was visiting my friend Émilie, and these woods are my shortcut home." Stuffing her hands into the pocket of her red hoodie, she motioned with her head for them to follow. "Come on, I'll show you guys the turn that leads to your farm."

Rehan and Gauher followed her, arms hooked together, silently hoping Kazim was safe.

***** *****  
Kazim had returned home from his business trip. He and Corinne argued endlessly about what had transpired in his absence. He suspected she had made up the scare of not being able to COMM him, to try to rid herself of Rehan; but he knew confronting her about that would only worsen things. The already dysfunctional family's dynamics were only deteriorating further. Corinne had even stopped paying heed to whether Kazim was within earshot when she berated them.

One day, at the breakfast table, she was ranting about how the children were selfish and didn't value the only person who had looked past Rehan's deformities to accept their father. Rehan felt himself losing control. Filled with months of pent up resentment threatening to boil up to the surface, he threw down his fork. To his horror, he realized a second too late that this powerful bolus of emotions had been aimed directly at its effector. Her face lit up with fear, and she backed up out of the kitchen, stumbling over her own feet.

"I'm sorry!" she sobbed over and over again, until Rehan finally managed to break his hold on her. Just as soon as it had come, the fear twisted itself into a rage fueled by shock and humiliation. She promptly regained her composure, just as Kazim was rushing to her side. She shook him off, and instead rushed at Rehan, with murder and vengeance in her eyes. Roughly grabbing his arm, she dragged him towards the door to the backyard, ignoring the frantic protests of her lunar family.

She yanked him onto the delivery ship with a firm grip. "I've had enough of your anomaly."

Kazim came forward, trying to get Corinne away from the cockpit. Meanwhile, Gauher climbed into the ship to try and help Rehan out. By then, however, Corinne had managed to overpower Kazim, get in, and seal the doors. The children were trapped. They rushed over to a window to look down at their devastated father, calling out to his wife in vain.

"I'll see that you never find your way back this time. You think you can get away with trying to work some magic on me," she seethed, while her unwilling passengers huddled together in fear.

She abandoned them in the woods and sped away.

Rehan's fear and anxiety was causing his glamor to flash on and off haphazardly; and at one such moment, they were observed by a man, slightly younger than their father, with a gleam in his eyes. He smiled and beckoned to them eagerly. They shared a brief look of unsaid understanding, and walked up to him. He led them to a well-lived-in, comfortable-looking cottage. In hindsight, they wished they had run away from him.

Dr. Ubelalt Hagen was a physician single-mindedly obsessed with finding a cure for letumosis, ever since the plague had orphaned him two decades ago. He thanked the stars when he stumbled upon a lunar; lunars were allegedly immune to letumosis, and he was sure he could reach a breakthrough by experimenting on one. The girl turned out to not have the lunar gift of manipulation, so Hagen focused on the boy, using Gauher as a lab assistant. However, he was growing increasingly frustrated with his own lack of progress.

"Have you prepared the blood samples?"

"Yes, Dr. Hagen," Gauher replied resignedly. She looked guiltily at the many still-healing puncture marks on her unconscious brother's arms and at the vials the scientist had forced her to fill. I'll get us out of here, she thought at Rehan, willing him to hear her.

Sneaking out of the lab was impossible; she had tried, and she had been caught and punished. She couldn't contact anyone either; Hagen kept a close watch on his netscreen, and she couldn't find any portscreen.

"Nothing! Again!" Hagen shouted, uncharacteristically. He then turned his mad brown eyes on her. "That's it," he returned to his calm, cold demeanor. "His blood cannot be used to make an antidote. The virus must be going through another pathway." Hagen began pacing, but his eyes never released Gauher. "The liver perhaps," he murmured to himself. He smiled charmingly, frightening her further. "Well kid, I think I'm finally on the verge of my breakthrough."

She knew from her limited experience that reasoning with him was futile. But she also knew that time was running out for Rehan.

A few hours later, Hagen called out to Gauher. When she arrived, he was holding a syringe, filled with an ominous blue substance. "It's ready!" He could barely contain his anticipation. Rehan was conscious but fastened to the bed.

"Listen closely. You will inject him with this. It will end his life while preserving the independent function of most of his organs. I have incorporated the virus in it to observe its method of elimination. But that means I can't handle it manually."

"But you said you were pretty sure I'm not immune."

"I am," he stated matter-of-factly. "But I won't have use for you after this." It never occurred to him to test her blood.

Gauher feigned slowness. "I don't know how to do injections."

Exasperated in his impatience, Hagen put out his own arm. "Oh stars! Just put in the needle here, and push the plunger," he said, indicating in the crook of his own elbow.

Grabbing her chance, she emptied the syringe into the doctor's vein, and watched him double over in disbelief and horror at what he knew would come next. Rehan, too weak to shout, gestured that the keys were in Hagen's coat pocket. Once she managed to free Rehan, Gauher slid the door shut and locked it from the outside, quarantining the scientist in his own lab. Using the netscreen in the outer lab area, the siblings COMMed a hover. Only then did they take a minute to hug, pouring a fortnight's worth of uncertainty and trauma into that one shared gesture.

They arrived home to find Kazim sitting on the sofa. He had aged ten years since they had last seen him.

"Dad," Rehan called softly. Kazim turned with a bevy of emotions, disbelief and hope chief among them. He cried out as he fell to his knees, drawing them to him and engulfing them in his arms.

"I've been looking for you since that day," he spoke clearly through the steady stream of tears. "Scouring the woods like a madman."

"Where's Corinne?" Gauher interjected.

Kazim sighed. "The plague."

Rehan and Gauher exchanged a look. Then they put their arms around their father's neck; and once again the three of them had no one but each other in the whole universe.


End file.
